Heaven part 4

Just twice, before the invasion, had I visited the Garfield Park. A beautiful park it had
been, with birches as high as the sky, swing sets crowded with children, and the duck
pond reflecting the sky like a mirror with white blossoming water lilies. You could hear
the laughter and the joy the park consisted from afar away.

But this time, as we got closer to the edge of the park, only the steps of the steel men
echoed into our ears. Jack, trotting in before me was not out of breath like I was, even
after running five blocks' way in the streets of Chicago. The sun had set, and the
darkness was undoubtedly warning us about the dangers ahead.


Quickly we found ourselves a huge thick bush –an unbelievably huge and thick bush-
and camped under its long, dense branches.

"Hear them? The Cybermen are looking for the entrance, " Jack whispered, as his breath
became visible because the air had slowly become colder, "and they've done quite well so
far. See that pond over there?" He shot his finger to the abundance of green. About a
half a mile from us lay a pond. The strand was not yet crowded by Cybermen, but they were
marching the near areas, and it seemed that they were, little by little, heading for the
water.

"Yeah, that's the duck pond. Is that where we're heading?" I asked, as still as I could
manage myself to be and fighting the urge to hyperventilate. "Is the entrance near?"


"Yeah," Jack answered, a little more flamboyant than I had expected.





It was as if the steel men had all stopped.
  

Jack slowly turned to me. His tone was, to me, far too excited and unappropriate for the
situation as he spoke:
"Now, Gwen, this is it," he whispered to me, serious and excited, "In a few minutes, we
are gonna storm out of this bush, and fight through those Cybes to get through-" he
grinned and pointed out a large rock near the pond, "-that entrance door to the City."
The rock was the size of a fat, old, 40 inch television, looking dully normal.


"I don't understand," I confessed.

"Well, you do soon, cupcake," he said.

"Oh my god."

Not much later than two or three minutes, small, yet a heavy gun of some sort lay in my
hands. I had no intention to use it, but Jack had insisted –he wanted me down there
alive. There, in the bush, we hid and glanced in every direction, watching weather we had
company near.

Five Cybermen there, there and there. No Cybermen there or there. Some heading towards us.
Leaves. A narrow patch of empty grass.

In my right, Jack had his full armor on: guns in both of his hands and despite the fact
that it was dark as night, and we were on our knees, I could see something like a
keychain, or a car key hanging from his belt. I suppose that would be considered a full
armor. Not like me though, with a shabby shirt and now muddy jeans. I wondered, how would
I be protected if a Cyberman would aim at me, but decided to leave it as that and let
myself deal with the already blinding horror that was bubbling up inside me, making me
feel nauseous and close to a point of hyperventilation.

"So, you ready?" Jack said, annoyingly breaking the silence I was counting on to keep
myself safe.

"Uhh…" I started, but a monotone, creechy voice coming terrifyingly near from us, and
stopped me.



"You… are… not… alone."



Like a dimly lit torch my mind was from that moment on: shapes, colors, all painted in
black, metallic vastness and yet while fully conscious, no real control over any of the
happening. Moving felt uneasy and drowsy, dream-like and through the thick veil that was
surrounding my senses, the shots of the blue light and the bangs creeped -miraculously.


After we left our hide, we ran like hell.
Like hell with flames and everything.

Yet, as if it was only for the distant pond that we were running at all, and not for our
lives, Jack kept our course straight ahead. Me, wanting nothing more than the possibility
to run deep into the lone-looking forest and away from the spotlight – it was now
foolish to even think about the possibility of us not being noticed.


We ran under the sky now and the forces of Cybermen were steadily coming closer, each one
screaming something I couldn't figure out –it was too mashed up with all the other
things happening. They were everywhere-left, right, chasing us, and Jack's gunshot trials
did very little, bouncing off of their metal skin.

Although they still did something-whenever hit in the Cyberman's head, it would explode
loudly, cracking some internal circuit in the machine's head and killing it. But well, it
was either them or us today, and although exhausted from the days of starving and the
evening of adrenaline-full escape, my loathing towards the Cybermen stayed the same -that
lively sort of wrath that made me able to move my legs as the blurry figure running ahead
of me had his hand gripping my own tightly, leaving no other choice but to blindly,
passionately keep on running, and run for ever more.